Dukes artistic director Joe Sumsion said goodbye to the theatre he’s led since 2008 last week.
Over the past nine years, Joe has steered the venue through some choppy waters but leaves it on an even keel and returns next summer as the freelance director of the theatre’s walkabout production of Treasure Island.
After his first visit to The Dukes in 1973—as a child to see a Christmas production—it was the park shows which lured Joe back in 1988 when he was assistant stage manager on As You Like It and Alice Through The Looking Glass.
The experience paid off when Joe became artistic director in 2008 and the first play he directed was Beauty & The Beast.
Since then, he has directed all but one of the walkabout productions for which The Dukes has become nationally famous and which won a UK Theatre Award for Best Show for Children and Young People in 2016.
Joe took over at a challenging time as funding cuts had hit hard, leading to low staff morale but with the help of those staff he soon developed an artistic policy and recruited associate artists to bring in new ideas.
Joe is moving on to become a lecturer in Acting at the University of Central Lancashire and a freelance director and it’s The Dukes own productions which will remain most memorable for him, especially last summer’s The Hobbit and A Christmas Carol in 2013.
His commitment to new writing, including such productions as Quicksand by Zosia Wand, also led to some standout moments and a Writers Guild of Great Britain Olwen Wymark Theatre Encouragement Award.